Lin took Yin Chen Yue from Crimson’s arms and sprinted for the gate, while the Abyssal Rift behind them ballooned like a tearing storm, ready to swallow the underground district whole.

Yin Chen Yue curled small in Lin’s embrace; fear ran through her like cold rain, yet she prayed for Night Frost and the others, wishing her cherished ones safe return.

Yin Tianchen paced at the gate, anxiety stitched across his face; the sudden opening of the Abyssal Rift cut his routines like a knife.

By all rules, an underground district shouldn’t birth a Rift; the air down here was clean as winter glass, without a breath of Abyssal Aura or a grain of Mana.

Everyone entering Rouge Rabbit’s underground district went through strict cleansing, like crossing a river to leave the dust behind.

And still the accident struck; Yin Chen Yue was trapped below, and he could only hope Crimson or Lin would bring his treasured daughter back, and bring her back alive.

He soothed the sick employees with a steady voice, then ordered the fighters stationed below to intercept the Monsters, buying the rest precious minutes to evacuate.

Lin moved fast, his steps like arrows; in a few bounds he reached Rouge Rabbit’s underground gate, flashed his papers, and slid past cybernetic fighters cradling their guns.

“Boss!”

Lin shouted, and the man at the gate—Yin Tiancheng, in the act of calming his people—snapped his head around.

He saw the trembling girl in Lin’s arms, and the sight struck him like dawn breaking; it was his daughter, Yin Chen Yue.

His body shook; he pulled the girl into his arms, and her quaking eased under that warm, familiar shelter, her eyes blinking like wet stars.

She looked at the middle‑aged man holding her; the face felt new, yet his warmth and scent told her who he was.

“Dad?”

Yin Tiancheng heard that word and touched his cheek, startled; no mask this time, and she still knew him, like a bird knowing its nest.

All these years, to see her and keep her safe, he changed name and borrowed faces, slipping into hours no one would notice, wearing a skin that wasn’t his.

Since Yin Chen Yue fell ill, this was his first time facing her with his own face, and she recognized him at a glance, like spring recognizing rain.

“Yes… it’s Dad…”

Nearly fifty now, and since coming to Rouge Rabbit he hadn’t cried in an age; for the first time his eyes held tears, as he stroked Yin Chen Yue’s cheek.

Lin stood quiet at a distance, watching them reunite; perhaps after today, she would cling to Yin Tiancheng like ivy to stone.

The underground district shuddered before he could finish the thought; the ground above Rouge Rabbit trembled in sympathy, and a bellow rose from the deep earth.

A deafening roar rolled with it, layered over a heavy, vigorous heartbeat, like drums beating inside a mountain.

As seven years ago, that pounding dragged Yin Tiancheng’s mind backward, the past opening like a scar.

It was his second year as Rouge Rabbit’s boss; he had cleared remnants of the last owner’s crew, chased off loafers, and uprooted pieces other groups had planted.

Rouge Rabbit was vast; for a first‑time boss, the weight on his shoulders felt like Atlas’s burden, and he feared everyone’s hopes would wash away like rain.

So he ran himself ragged, feet burning and lungs ash, just to keep Rouge Rabbit thriving like a spring forest.

Then came a heartbeat from an unknown nowhere, covering all of District Two like a tide; because of that beat, many fell ill, his daughter among them.

The disease drove hearts into wild rhythms at random hours; pain sprouted in the heart and spread, like thorns growing under the skin.

Unable to balance Mana and Abyssal Aura, their skin tore under twin currents, and without timely suppression, they were shredded into pulp.

He held Yin Chen Yue tight; it was her first attack, and as a child she had no shield, while Abyssal Aura and Mana raked her body like claws.

Luckily, Qinyu kept her life afloat like a raft; otherwise, she would have been among the first tens of thousands to die to this curse.

This was Yin Tiancheng’s shadow, carved deep; he watched her agony, and poured years and fortune like a river, just to keep her living in health.

That shadow rose again now; the terrible heartbeat filled every ear, and even knowing covering them was a futile charm against thunder, his hands trembled and closed over hers.

“Don’t listen… don’t listen.”

His voice shook like a loose string; his own heart began to match the pounding in the air, and invisible hands tugged his chest, trying to rip the heart free.

In his arms, Yin Chen Yue relapsed under that pressure; her eyes squeezed shut, pain knotting her brow like a tightening vine.

Her cheeks bloomed green and purple bruises, and the skin on her arms visibly cracked, as she curled in on herself with a low, breaking moan.

Yin Tiancheng held on, teeth gritted; his heart was being dragged toward the underground district like a hooked fish, yet his feet refused to move.

Others couldn’t bear it; breath tattered, blood slowed to sludge, and to snatch air they staggered into the underground district, into the expanding Abyss like moths to a black flame.

All color drained from Yin Tiancheng’s face; Lin saw it, and supported him toward the gate, knowing another minute of this weight might crush his heart.

The underground was perilous, but stepping closer eased the pressure; Lin stayed at his side, a shadow ready to shield him if danger struck.

“Don’t… go.”

Yin Tiancheng resisted, but Lin didn’t follow orders this time; he helped him inside, and relief trickled back like water, while anger flared on Yin Tiancheng’s wan face, then guttered out.

“You want to protect me, but I want more to protect my daughter… Lin, take her and live. Please.”

He knew he might not survive; Lin, being half Monster, wasn’t ruled by this heartbeat, and he wanted to entrust his girl to that strength.

“No… you’ll both live. You, Boss, and your daughter.”

Lin’s palm turned into pitch‑black talons; his skin drank the Abyssal Aura like dark soil drinking rain, and his muscles swelled, flesh rising like storm‑driven waves.

He grew huge, a figure like a Monster stepping from the Abyss; yet part of him stayed human, and some skin necrosed, unable to accept the dark breath.

Inside him, the brain, eyes, and portions of bone remained human, fragile islands in a sea of shadow.

This was Lin’s true face, born of a human and a Monster, a hybrid accident no one could reproduce.

He was a species of one, past and future, a solitary star; he was born to sorrow, branded an outcast by the wind.

He remembered the hand that reached for him, and the words at his ear, echoes he carried from the lab he’d fled like a beast slipping its cage.

“What a curious little thing. You’re an outcast, and so am I…”

“You’re not human?”

He bared his teeth at Yin Tiancheng, young then, without lines or gray; messy hair, thin frame, yet power quiet as thunder under snow.

He could have twisted off that unguarded head like snapping a stem; but because of Yin Tiancheng’s words, the boy lifted his gaze.

He circled, sniffing Yin Tiancheng’s scent like a wary wolf, and no matter how he inhaled, the man smelled like a normal human.

“You’re human! Liar!”

He readied his hands to twist that head and end the doubt.

“Our species differ, but we’re the same in truth… we stand on the same earth, we can speak to each other, and we both wish for peace.”

Yin Tiancheng stepped close and spread his arms to hug him; the lithe boy slipped away like smoke, and Yin Tiancheng chased him with a stubborn grin.

This time he caught him, and murmured in the boy’s ear, words like lantern‑light.

“We speak and we laugh, we taste loneliness; we run and we fall, and still we rise again. Whatever the creature, whatever the race, we are the same.”

The boy squeezed his eyes shut and drew a slow breath; his bronze skin swelled, and where he had been a head shorter than Yin Tianchen, he grew towering, far above Yin Tiancheng.

“How about this?”

No fear marked Yin Tiancheng’s face; he reached to touch the boy’s head, found it too high, and patted his shoulder instead, calm as a settled lake.

“Some will fear your looks, but some will see your kindness; then fear will fade like mist in sun.”

“I know this—you’re a kind child, aren’t you?”

Seeing no fear on that face, the boy believed a little; he shrank to his original form, half crouching, the tip of his nose reddening like winter plum.

“From now on, come with me, alright?”

“Do you have a name?”

He shook his head.

“Then you’ll be called Lin—mountain‑steadfast, forest‑abundant.”

Lin didn’t refuse; having a name lit him like a candle.

“What’s your name, then?”

“I’m Yin Tiancheng. You can call me Tiancheng, or Boss…”

Lin thought for a heartbeat, then blurted it out like a pledge.

“Okay, Boss!”